Laryngeal Changes

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Abstract

The so-called laryngeals were consonants in Proto-Indo-European which are partly preserved in the Anatolian languages. They are lost everywhere in Greek, but they caused extensive changes to the Greek vowel system, and many seeming irregularities such as atypical ablaut patterns, the peculiar Attic reduplication, and prothetic vowels (e.g. astḗr ~ English star < *h₂stēr-, cf. Hittite ḫasterza) can be traced to the presence of laryngeals in the proto-language.